From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011019 Netscape6/6.2 Description of problem: Hi, I've got a PC with ASUS P4T-E Mainboard. Kickstart-Installation with: linux ks=floppy doesn't work: /tmp/ks.cfg: No such file or directory (but it is on the floppy !) ALT-F3 says: * probing for floppy devices * no floppy devices found * going to insmod fat.o (path is NULL) * going to insmod vfat.o (path is NULL) * failed to mount floppy: No such device Installing RH7.2 from DVD also gives: no such device for /dev/fd0. Creating a bootdiskette during installation also doesn't work. No diskette-Picture on KDE desktop after installation. Remarks: I tried RedHat Linux 7.0 and the creation of a bootdisk during installation failed again, but after installation, the floppy drive works fine ! Booting (netboot.img) from the diskette drive works, initrd.img and vmlinuz are loaded properly. BIOS updated to latest level (1005e) doesn't help. The same problem with SUSE 7.2. DOS and WIN98 work with the diskette without problems. BIOS says: Legacy Diskette A: 1.44M , 3.5 in. I tried also "Floppy 3 Mode Support" disabled and enabled BIOS - advanced - I/O Device Configuration: "Floppy Disk Access Control [R/W]" Plug & Play O/S [No] Mikael (http://linux-kernel.skylab.org/20011021/msg01481.html) seems to describe and solve just this problem. Unfortunately, his solution doesn't work at my side or I made a mistake The Problem is reproducable on all 12 machines I have with this motherboard. No problems on those with other motherboards. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Buy a ASUS P4T-E motherboard 2.Try a kickstart installation of RedHat Linux 7.2 from floppy 3.See if it works Actual Results: as described above Expected Results: Access to floppy Additional info: I had several contacts to RedHat Support and they finally gave the advice to bring this problem to bugzilla
Reassigning to kernel
They seem to have a very weird floppy. The change in the email is in current 2.4 kernels so the problem should vanish in newer releases
I was about to report the identical bug. I have the same motherboard and the same problem. Additional Information: useful or not, I don't know. Redhat 7.2 reports: floppy0: no floppy controllers found LinuXcare bootable recovery disk v1.5: floppy works normally with no problem Mandrake Linux, current version reports: port busy. On searching /proc to see what was using port, it said it was used by some plug and play module. One inconsistant result: I was able to access floppy for a while with just the plug and play turned off in the BIOS. That no longer works. Installation kernel has same problem. I was also referred here by Redhat technical support. howard
I have a P4t-E Asus motherboard too, with similar problem - no floppy controller found. Have upgraded the Bios to 1005E, with no success. Saw the comment from alan, that the change is in current 2.4 Kernels, so should be in the next release. So I tried RawHide 2.4.18-04 Kernel. Still no success. Had a look at the source for the 2.4.18-04 Kernel, and found that yes, the change to bootsect.S has been made. I suspect there are two problems -- During install of RH 7.2 , the "Make Boot Disk" fails as does kickstart facility, as described originally in this Bug No' (Fixed with the bootsect.S patch??) -- After install, the floppy controller still locks up so no controllers found. Cheers, Michael
I have stumbled onto a work around that seems to work for me. If I recompile the kernel with the floppy driver as a module rather than part of the kernel, the problem seems to go away. If this works for others, I would still be interested to know the real nature of the problem as this work around should really have no effect.
Howards solution (Floppy as module) also works for me with kernel 2.4.9-31. Thanks !! Andreas
I have the same problem, i.e. floppy device not found after installation. ASUS P4T-E motherboard. BIOS version 1005. Red Hat Linux version 7.3 Kernel 2.4.18-4.
asus P4T-E P4 motherboard same problem 7.2 same problem 7.3 - More $$ to upgrade and still broke! I am bracing myself to figure out Howards recompile the kernel (crap!) "with the floppy driver as a module rather than part of the kernel" and? turn off the Plug & Play in the BIOS? If anyone has a newbie simple description on how to do this please post or email me!
Before you try recompiling anything, set the BIOS to non Plug & Play, save the settings and see if that makes a difference. Basically this board appears to have some weird, unique and non standard floppy compatibility problem
Alan - Thanks: Here are the results so far: 7.2 Plug & Play Floppy device not found 7.2 Non Plug & Play Floppy device not found 7.3 Plug & Play Floppy device not found 7.3 Non Plug & Play Not tested yet - I will test this weekend and advise The only variable in each case is Plug & Play. When I installed 7.3 I did a complete reinstall (not an upgrade).
My BIOS is already set to Non Plug & Play. Floppy device still not found.
Alan: Ok so I turned off Plug & Play and just as noted by krcomp above still no luck - : Here are the results so far: 7.2 Plug & Play Floppy device not found 7.2 Non Plug & Play Floppy device not found 7.3 Plug & Play Floppy device not found 7.3 Non Plug & Play Floppy device not found
I recompiled my kernel with the floppy driver as a module as recommended by howard and I can now access my floppy drive.
I dumped the asus board - I don't have time for this so I am looking at an MSI 845E MAX2 LR P4 board or an MSI 845 Ultra-ARU P4 Mboard with Raid. I would prefer the RDRAM (MSI uses DDR) and faster frontside bus of the asus P4T but I cannot wait for a fix and I do not want to recompile - I need a stock working version of RedHat. In the meantime I am using an old 200MHz gateway which used to be rock solid on RedHat 6.1 but mostly works on RedHat 7.3 (the MCOPY floppy access sometimes failes to acknowledge an overwrite confirm). As far as I can see there is no complaints on MSI but if anyone knows otherwise please advise.
The problem is still present with latest RH 7.3 kernel update, 2.4.18-5
I am having the same problem on an HP Pavilion 7960, which I think has the same Asus motherboard. On tech support's suggestion, I have tried compiling the driver as a module, and it seems to have caused Linux to recognize the floppy controller, but I could not complete the Kudzu procedure when the system recognized the device (at boot) because ... now it no longer recognized any USB devices! -- and those include my mouse and keyboard! So I had no input and could not complete either the Kudzu procedure or login.
Can anyone help me with this problem? I have the same problem as mention above. I have an ASUS P4T-E motherboard and I am running Linux 7.3. The problem that I am having is not being able to copy to and from the floppy drive. In fact, the Linux system does not recognize the floppy drive at all. After reading the comments above, I turned off and on the Plug and Play option in my BIOS, however, nothing changed. I am not sure how to recompile my BIOS as mentioned above. I could use some help on that as well. The bottom line problem that I am trying to resolve is getting the Linux system to recognize the floppy drive so I can copy to and from a floppy. Any advice?
The current situation is that the ASUS P4T-E floppy isnt detected at boot, but is detected by identical code if used at module load time. Why this occurs I have no idea, and it seems to be an ASUS P4T-E specific problem. I have a couple of fairly off the wall guesses at what might be the problem if someone wants to grab a test kernel image, write it to floppy and try booting it on an afflicted board. The odds of it working are not brilliant but it might be worth the experiment to find out what is up
I am not real experienced with this stuff, however, if someone can explain to me how to get a kernel image, write it to a floppy and booting it, I will be happy to try.
Bug #64046 might shed some light, looks like potential dupe here, with patch of possible solution..
*** Bug 64046 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The change should not make any difference but if it does then its good news. The change Mikael proposes is needed anyway for legacy free PC systems which don't have a conventional floppy controller.
Here's the problem -- bootsect.S has the patch applied -- and the floppy drive doesn't work. When I recompile the kernel making the floppy modular. Then the floppy drive works. --> BUT THIS IS NOT A FIX!! <-- Reality is that it works if you've already installed the OS, and recompiled the kernel -- it DOES NOT work if you're trying to do an NFS based kickstart install of a large number of networked systems. Or if you have to read from the floppy on an install. The bootnet.img that comes on the stock 7.3 disks is not setup with a kernel that has a modular floppy. I'd have to go back, unpack the bootnet.img, try and compile a bootable kernel (w/ modular floppy support), edit the initrd.img adding the appropriate floppy.o, and rebuild the img... UGH... Please note: I'm trying to automate an NFS based install using kickstart, and not being able to read from the floppy on install is killing me. I first tried passing the ks.cfg to the install process via floppy (i.e. -- dumped ks.cfg onto bootnet.img with vmlinuz, edited syslinux.cfg making default ks, and ks=floppy) -- Obviously once the install kernel loads, it kills the floppy drive, therefore ks.cfg isn't able to be read. The whole process simply stops at this point. Next I tried passing the ks.cfg file to install process via dhcpd.conf -- example: host whatever{ filename "/nfsmountable/directory/ks.cfg"; etc. (mac address, options etc) } The bootnet.img file -- syslinux.cfg is edited to reflect nfs server has ks.cfg file -- ala --> ks=nfs:192.168.1.1:/kickstart Problem is that as the install process dies when trying to read the ks.cfg,saying something like: Error no such file or directory "/tmp/ks.cfg". Next had the bright idea of unpacking the bootnet.img, unpacking initrd.img, and dumping the ks.cfg in the /tmp directory within the ramdisk image, then repacking everything. Everything appears to work but install process is not automated -- (and I do have skipx set, and don't have interactive install turned on). Plus, the install process doesn't work all the time... i.e. -- non repeatable events. Sometimes anaconda crashes, sometimes I get a "blue screen" (YIKES Blue screens YIKES) and can see that the nfs/dhcp servers cpu/network is being hammered on, etc, etc, etc... Seems like the floppy drive "issue" is not a completed issue at all... NEED INPUT PLEASE!!
Please also note this is a duplicate of a "closed" problem -- see Bug #57253
*** Bug 57253 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
<Sim> mharris: good news though, the bugzilla problem #60887 has gone away with 8.0 ... HAVE NO IDEA WHY... but it's not an issue with 8.0 install w/ Asus P4T-E motherboards... I'm closing this bug now as fixed in Red Hat Linux 8.0.
8.0 doesnt assume and use legacy I/O for the floppy reset, it uses the bios during boot up. I assume whatever was weird about the P4T-E happens to be worked around by the bios
I am running Redhat 8.0 on a P4TE, and the problem is still present. I don't think it's gone away at all. Is there NOTFORME atribute in Bugzilla ?? I might try a BIOS update from ASUS if there is one..Am still original 1005 version. Cheers, Michael
I'm using RH8 on an Asus P4T-E and am also still having the problem. I'm running the 2.4.18-19.8.0 kernel. Has RH released some patch for this or has anyone confirmed if the BIOS is responsible for the bug? Thanks, Patrick
The BIOS upgrade didn't fix the problem. I have, after being given sound advice, opened a new Bug http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=75687 I am hoping that was the right thing to do. Since I cannot re-open this closed bug....
This is still a problem in RedHat 8.0 and SuSE. When asked to create a boot disk during install, one was created and there was no problem. When I boot up the Linux kernel, I cannot mount my floppy still. Mandrake does not seem to have this problem, but there are a few little quirks I have with it. Why the floppy drive will work when creating a boot disk during installation and not when X starts, I have no idea. If you try running RedHat at runlevel 3, you may be able to mount the floppy drive (somehow it seems the /dev/fd0 reappears???), but there will be numerous errors when writing to/from the floppy. Hope this gets fixed; I'm highly satisfied for the most part with 8.0.
Guessing this will be fixed by redhat 12.0
Fixing it is tricky. The P4T-E board seems to have something very odd and not quite PC compatible in its floppy hardware. There simply isnt sufficient information available